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Following *zarant-uštra- are
• “with old/aging camels,” related to Vedic járant- and similar to Ossetic zœrond. [4]
• “with yellow camels” with a parallel to Younger Avestan zairi-. [5]
• “with angry camels,” from Avestan *zarant- “angry, furious.” [3]
“Several more etymologies have been proposed, some quite fanciful, but none is scientifically
based.” [1]
Greek Zoroaster
Greek Zōroástrēs appears [4] to have arisen from an association of ástra “stars” with the leading
zōrós meaning “undiluted.” This is the oldest attested Greek form of the name, attested in the midfifth
century BCE Lydiaka of Xanthus (frag. 32) and in (Pseudo-)Plato’s Alcibiades Maior
(122a1). This old form appears subsequently as Latin Zoroastres and - as a secondary
development - Greek Zōroástris.
Greek Zōroástrēs has motivated attempts to reconstruct an intermediate Old Western Iranian
variant of Avestan Zaraθuštra from which the European forms could then derive. The proposals
include *zara-uštra- or *zarah-uštra-, which – or so it is theorized – first produced Greek *zaraóstr(ēs),
then – by metathesis – *zaro-ástr(ēs) and finally – provoked by the association with
“stars” – the attested Zōroástrēs. Neither *zara-uštra- or *zarah-uštra- have a great following
among the linguistic community since neither adequately explain the Old Iranian forms. Besides,
*zarah-uštra- is a “phonologically improbable form in any Old Iranian language.” [6]
Date
Until the late 1800s, Zoroaster was generally dated to about the sixth century BCE, which
coincided with both the “Traditional date” (see details below) and historiographic accounts
(Ammianus Marcellinus xxiii.6.32, fourth c. CE). However, already at the time (late nineteenth
century), the issue was far from settled, with James Darmesteter pleading for a later date (c. 100
BCE) and others pleading for dates as early as 6000 BCE. [e]
The “Traditional date” originates in the period immediately following Alexander’s conquest of the
Achaemenid Empire in 330 BCE. The Seleucid kings who gained power following Alexander’s
death instituted an “Age of Alexander” as the new calendrical epoch. This did not appeal to the
Zoroastrian priesthood who then attempted to establish an “Age of Zoroaster.” To do so, they
needed to establish when Zoroaster had lived, which they accomplished by counting back the
length of successive generations [7] until they concluded that Zoroaster must have lived “258 years
before Alexander.” This estimate then re-appeared in the ninth to twelfth century texts of
Zoroastrian tradition, [c] which in turn gave the date doctrinal legitimacy.
In the twentieth century, this date (which may be any number of different years subject to when
“Alexander” happened [d] ) remained acceptable to a number of reputable scholars, among them
Hasan Taqizadeh, a recognized authority on the various Iranian calendars and hence became the
date cited by Henning and others.
However, already in the late nineteenth century scholars such as Bartholomea and Christensen
noted problems with the “Traditional date,” namely in the linguistic difficulties that it presented.
Since the Old Avestan language of Gathas (that are attributed to the prophet himself) is still very
close to the Sanskrit of the Rigveda, it seemed plausible that the Gathas and Rigveda could not be
more than a few centuries apart. Since the Rigvedic compositions could be fairly accurately dated
to about the thirteenth/14th century BCE, and because the Old Avestan was less (but only slightly
less) archaic than that of the Rigveda, it followed that the oldest surviving portions of the Avesta
date to around 1000 BCE (+/- one century).
This tenth/11th century BCE date is now almost universally accepted among Iranists, who in
recent decades have also found that the social customs described in the Gāthās roughly coincides
with what is known of other pre-historical peoples of that period. Supported by this historical